Obama on Clapper's spy lie: 'He should have been more careful'

Despite calls from Congress to fire Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for lying under oath, United States President Barack Obama says that the spy chief should have just been a little more careful with his words.

Clapper, the 72-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant general in
charge of the nation's intelligence departments, caused a
commotion last year when he was caught lying during sworn
testimony delivered to the Senate.

Answering to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) during a meeting of the
chamber's select committee on intelligence last March, Clapper
claimed that the National Security Agency does “not
wittingly” collect and store data on American people. When
former contractor Edward Snowden proved him wrong through leaked
NSA documents weeks later, though, Clapper was forced to take
back his words. He later apologized to committee chairperson Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-California) for what he called a “clearly
erroneous” remark, and insisted he gave simply the
“least untruthful” answer he could give in an
unclassified setting.

Clapper's comment has continued to attract criticism nearly a
year later — and more than seven months after the first Snowden
disclosures showed how wrong he was. When Pres. Obama finally
opened up about the ordeal this week, though, he far from sided
with the critics who have been calling for Clapper's termination.

“I think that Jim Clapper himself would acknowledge, and has
acknowledged, that he should have been more careful about how he
responded,” Obama told CNN in an interview that aired
Friday. “His concern was that he had a classified program
that he couldn’t talk about, and he was in an open hearing in
which he was asked, he was prompted to disclose a program, and so
he felt he was caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“As I said in the speech that I gave a couple of weeks ago,
what’s clear is that we are going to have to do a better job of
being transparent about what we do, to have a robust public
debate about what we do,” Obama added. “But it’s going
to take some time. It’s going to take some work, partly because
the technology has just moved so quickly that the discussions
that need to be had didn’t happen fast enough, didn’t happen on
the front end.”

Obama wasn't the only one to endorse DNI Clapper this week,
either. Former United Nations ambassador John Bolton appeared on
Fox News late Thursday, and hailed the intelligence director for
comments he made this week before Congress.

Clapper was again on the stand earlier this week when he spoke of
the current terror threats facing the US, and said those dangers
had become more “disperse” than ever as extremists
groups grow in size and scope.

"This is a stunning statement by James Clapper. You can't
underline it enough,” Bolton responded.

That isn't to say that the entirety of Washington's elite is
ready to shower Clapper with applause. When the spy chief found
himself back before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier
this week on Wednesday, Sen. Wyden hardly shied away from
referencing last year's now infamous gaffe. While grilling
Clapper once again about the American intelligence community,
Wyden said, “I don’t think this culture of misinformation is
going to be easily fixed.”

Wyden's latest showdown with Clapper came just two days after
Pres. Obama was sent a letter from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)
is and five other members of Congress asking for him to take
action against the DNI for his "clearly erroneous"
remark.

“The continued role of James Clapper as director of national
intelligence is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in
our security programs and ensuring the highest level of
transparency,” they wrote.